Butler native Beth Briggs Giuliano and her husband, Jim, moved to Estero, Fla., two weeks ago to get away from the Western Pennsylvania weather.

“I got unpacked, got my condo in order with the pictures hung, and then Irma blows up,” Giuliano said. “It was like 'You have got to be kidding me.'”

Hurricane Irma could blast Florida this weekend as a Category 4 storm.

Giuliano and her husband on Friday were leaning toward traveling to Jim's sister's home that evening to ride out the hurricane with four others.

“I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we're going to his sister's in Miami because she has a generator and boarded up windows,” Giuliano said. “Either that or shelter in place.”

She said the couple gassed up their SUV on Tuesday, but can't find bottled water or plywood anywhere.

“The weather now is mostly sunny and about 90 degrees,” Giuliano said late Friday morning.

The Giuliano family knows the storm will be epic, but they have faith that they'll survive it.

“We'll get through it,” Giuliano said. “We just might not have anything left when it's over.”

Erin Parkinson Gombos, her husband and 3-year-old daughter, Jayna, left their Fort Myers home Wednesday for Butler.

The couple, who moved to Florida in 2013 and bought a house, took their valuables with them and put other things in high locations inside their home.

Their single-story home is made of concrete and sits about eight miles from the shore.

Gombos, a 2004 Butler High School graduate, said a pair of iPhone apps helped greatly as they escaped hurricane territory.

“Siri got us around accidents and major traffic jams,” Gombos said. “There was no gas in a lot of places, but we used Gas Buddy, which helped us find gas.”

Her husband was told he could leave his job at a hotel to flee the storm without repercussions. Gombos is a stay-at-home mom.

Gombos is extremely worried about her home because the yard flooded as the remnants of Hurricane Harvey passed through her area of Fort Myers.

She said she has insurance — including flood insurance — because the family's home is in a designated flood zone.

The couple and their daughter will remain with family on McQuistion Road as long as necessary.

“We're going to wait it out and see what happens to the house,” Gombos said.

Paula Gracik has many cherished memories of her childhood in Center Township, where she lived until about age 11 before her family moved to Florida.

Gracik, now an empty nester, lives about 15 miles from the shore in a third-floor condominium in Davie, Florida.

When she heard Irma was coming with a fury, she ordered hurricane-proof glass for her windows.

“But they didn't come in time,” Gracik said.

She recalls weathering hurricanes Andrew and Wilma, and being evacuated in the 1970s because of a hurricane that never made landfall.

“I don't get too excited, but I guess I should be,” Gracik said of the impending Irma. “My condo is on the top floor, so I do worry about my roof.”

She said at the insistence of her son, she will probably go to the home of his girlfriend's family a few miles away for Irma's duration.

“It'll be OK,” Gracik said. “What's going to happen is going to happen. There's only so much you can do.”

Sandy Tribley Rice tried to escape Cape Coral, Fla., with her 82-year-old mother, dog and husband, who is on the waiting list for a liver transplant.

“We started out on Wednesday and got to Tampa, and my husband just couldn't make it anymore,” Rice said. “We were planning to come to Butler.”

Rice, who graduated from Butler High School in 1981 and is legally blind, cannot drive.

“We just turned around and came home,” she said.

The family will follow some Facebook advice, like placing all their precious photos and other small valuables in the dishwasher and filling their washing machine with ice to keep perishables cold.

While the Rices' single-story block home 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico has no hurricane shutters, the neighbors' house does. The owners of the home gave their house key to Rice before heading to Ohio in case the windows are impacted and water is coming in.

“I talked to the landlord about boarding up the windows, and she just said 'that's what insurance is for,'” Rice said.

The Rices' neighbors told her that because of its ferocity, Irma shouldn't last long, so they are pinning their hopes on that prognostication.

“It's a little scary, but I know it's going to pass fairly quickly — I'm figuring maybe 12 hours — then it will head up north of us,” Rice said.

Jenna Cornibe, a 2003 Butler High School graduate, moved to Florida in 2014. She lives in Boynton Beach, just south of West Palm Beach.

She and her boyfriend, who is a U.S. Marine, feel they are prepared for almost anything Irma can throw their way.

Cornibe has six cases of water, jugs of water in the freezer, nonperishable food items, hurricane shutters in place, and a generator with extra gasoline.

Cornibe bought extra water when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, and she's glad she did.

“It's been mass chaos down here for a week,” she said.

Lines to get in major stores are a half-mile long in each direction, and once parked, customers must wait in lines that go at least from the door to the street.

The few gas stations that are not boarded up and closed after running out of gas are seeing snaking lines that end on highways.

“There have been lots of accidents because of the gas lines,” Cornibe said.

Officials on TV, she said, are announcing that cities would go on lockdown beginning at 8 p.m. Friday. No private vehicles or individuals — only emergency vehicles and personnel — are allowed on the street after that time until the lockdown is lifted.

Asked if she's afraid, Cornibe said she feels pretty confident that she will survive the storm.

“I'm not completely sure what to expect, but I feel we've prepared in every way possible,” Cornibe said.

But she admitted what those sheltering in place in the face of Irma are probably thinking.

“Mother Nature has her own plans.”